Tuesday, August 28, 2012

On Aug. 24, I wrote about a Radio Martí interview of a colorful and buxom porn star. That post quickly racked up more hits in four days than anything I'd written for the past 30 days.

Now taxpayer-financed Radio Martí has pulled the Aug. 1 interview from its website, depriving listeners who may want to hear Angelina Castro's tips on breaking in to the porn industry.

So if you somehow missed the interview - or want to listen to it again for old time's sake - you may download it here (18 MB).

Castro appeared on a Radio Martí program called 1800 Online, which is broadcast from 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
The show's hosts are Lizandra Díaz Blanco and Juan Juan Almeida, son of Juan Almeida, who fought with Fidel Castro during the Cuban revolution. A vice president of the Cuban Council of State, Almeida died in 2009. His son left the country in 2010 after publicly protesting the Cuban government's refusal to let him leave Cuba to seek medical treatment for health problems.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Those are some of words readers are using to describe a moving letter that was ostensibly written by a 28-year-old man who left Cuba two years ago and settled in Bulgaria.
I have just one question: Can anyone prove that the letter is genuine? I ask with all due respect to those who have suffered hardship in Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have left the island for economic, political and family reasons since 1959.
"Letter From a Young Man Who Has Left" has struck a chord among the many Cubans who made the wrenching decision to leave.
The author, identified as Ivan López Monreal, purportedly wrote the piece in response to "Letter to a Young Man Who is Leaving," by Rafael Hernández, director of the magazine, Temas.
López Monreal tells of his experiences as a student of "maestros emergentes," the young teachers social workers who began filling Cuba's ranks in around 2000. He writes:

You talk to me about the social conquests of the Revolution. About education and medicine. I am going to talk to you about my education. I had good teachers, and when they left they were substituted for others less prepared who, in turn, were replaced by social workers who wrote “experience” with an S and who were incapable of pointing on a map to five capitals of Latin America (they didn’t tell me this, I lived it). My parents had to hire private tutors so that I could truly learn. My parents did not pay them; my aunt based in Toronto did.

Someone commenting on the popular website Penúltimos Días, questioned whether López Monreal could have had social workers - the so-called "maestros emergentes" - as his teachers.

At 28, he could not have had 'maestros emergentes'...the dates do not add up.
Fake.

That is an interesting point. The "maestros emergentes" program was announced in 2000. López Monreal would have been 16 at that time. But aren't "maestros emergentes" for ninth grade and below? I don't know. But it's a point worth exploring. I mean, if López Monreal doesn't exist, who wrote the letter? A democracy activist? An NGO? A U.S. government agency? USAID? CIA? Who wrote it?

Whatever the case, the letter is a hit. Among the comments at Penúltimos Días:

I have no words to describe how I feel now, just perfect.
Ivan, how many truths! Congratulations!
No words, a magnificent letter to be printed and spread throughout the island.
Tremendous letter, no doubt. To read and re-read it again.

I searched the Internet for a Cuban named Ivan López Monreal and found only references to the letter. I couldn't find any other traces of an Ivan López Monreal, no photos, no blogs, no essays, no Facebook page, no proof of life.

It is remarkable that someone who was a ghost on the Internet up until a few weeks ago suddenly knocks it out of the park with his first piece.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Taxpayer-financed Radio Martí this month hosted a porn star who offered advice to Cubans who might be interested in getting into the skin trade.
Ronald Reagan established Radio Martí in 1983 to help promote freedom and democracy, but the Aug. 1 program featuring Angelina Castro was all about sex.
"I'm doing what I like," Castro told the station. "This career's what you make of it."
Castro took part in a Radio Martí show called 1800 Online, touted as a program that "uncovers the world of the Internet for Cubans who have hardly or never seen it."
The show's hosts are Lizandra Diaz Blanco and Juan Juan Almeida, son of the late Juan Almeida, one of the original commanders of the Cuban revolution.
Castro, 30, left Cuba when she was 10, went to the Dominican Republic and settled in the United States two years later.

Castro in 2009. Photo: Flickriver

Her biography says she first did a porn movie because she was curious. She told Radio Martí she needed money to pay her student loans.
She said she "fell in love with the industry" and the "fantasy" involved in acting.
Almeida asked her how Cubans still living on the island could contact her if they were interested in learning more about working in the porn industry.
Castro said pornography isn't like many people imagine. She said she doesn't make millions of dollars, ride around in a limo and have underlings tending to all her needs, giving her massages and taking care of her skin.
Making porn movies is work, she said. It's a job like any other.
Not all listeners appreciated hearing from a porn star.
The program was "crude," former political prisoner Ángel Cuadra wrote in Diario Las Américas on Aug. 24.
Castro's website "showcases the grossest scenes of pornography" and it's "embarrassing" to see her work promoted, Cuadra wrote.
While the Soviet Union was in power, Radio Free Europe tried to instill in listeners "a yearning for freedom and democracy," he wrote.
Cuadra said he didn't know "what possible oversight" could have led to the porn star's appearance on Radio Martí. The station should be broadcasting instead messages of "freedom, ethics and civic and patriotic values," he wrote.
Journalist Luís Diaz also questioned whether Radio Martí ought to host porn stars during a program on Telemiami, a 24-hour cable station.
Cuban writer Emilio Ichikawa criticized the idea of Diaz acting as a censor. He said Castro's "liberating smile and sense of humor" would do more for the freedom of Cuba than Diaz' "pedagogical dizziness."
Radio Martí is part of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which requested a budget of $23.59 million for 2013, down from $29.3 million this year. Its headquarters is in Miami.
A 2013 budget request states:
"The Office of Cuba Broadcasting broadcasts to audiences in Cuba via radio and television. Radio Martí and TV Martí aim to provide news, features, and information denied by the government to the Cuban audience. Their goal is to promote a better understanding of democratic values, human rights, market economies, free media, and freedom of expression."

Castro didn't talk about freedom or democracy while on Radio Martí. She did mention she is married and has a child.
"I'm normal," she said. "I'm not an extraterrestrial."
But once the camera starts rolling, she said, "I am transformed into Angelina Castro the Beast."
Almeida asked Castro the difference between pornography and prostitution. She replied that if porn stars are prostitutes, then so are all those who act on TV and in soap operas.
Asked why pornography is illegal in Cuba, Castro said many things are prohibited on the island. She joked that she wouldn't be surprised to see sexual relations rationed in Cuba just like rice and beans with couples allowed just one romantic encounter per month.
But she hopes that pornography is legalized in Cuba in the future, and she said she'd like to return to her homeland to make a porno one day.h/t to Emilio Ichikawa

Above, screenshot of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five's bulletin on the "groundbreaking" affidavit

(Update: On Aug. 26, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five let me know that the documents will be filed, but were delayed at the last minute because the legal team needed to rework them so they meet the technical requirements of U.S. District Court in South Florida.)

An appeals lawyer for the leader of five Cuban spies convicted in a Miami trial filed an affidavit Monday arguing that Radio/TV Marti secretly paid millions of dollars to journalists to influence jury members against his client.

Now someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see that any new court documents were filed in the Hernández case, as the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five had promised.
I have been monitoring Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or Pacer, and there are no new documents in the USA v. Hernández file (Case No. 1998-cr-00721).

Maybe there's a logical explanation and I'm looking for the affidavit in the wrong place. Anyone know? I'd hate to be the victim of a different kind of "propaganda machine."

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The photo caption calls this a "recent image" of Ofelia Acevedo and her husband, Oswaldo Payá. But I can tell you that the photo is not all that recent. I photographed the couple at their home in Havana's El Cerro neighborhood on July 14, 2010 (see more photos from that day here).
I wrote to ABC newspaper in Spain this morning, saying that the paper was using my photo without permission and improperly claiming credit for it. This is trivial, I know, especially when compared to more important matters - the controversy surrounding Payá's death, Ofelia Acevedo's fight to learn more about the car crash that killed her husband, the Payá family's struggle to recover, the fight for human rights. So pardon me for mentioning the photograph. But it's annoying when media organizations steal photos and claim them for their own.

I saw this photo on Nelson Rubio's Facebook timeline... It was spotted in Mexico, Nelson says. I don't know who shot it, but it's pretty funny. If anyone knows who took the picture, please let me know so I can credit the photographer.

Stroking longer and farther than in any of her four attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida, Diana called an end to it early this morning, one day before her 63rd birthday. It took Mother Nature’s biggest force—the weather—to get her out of the water (a second storm cell even larger than the first), but nature’s arsenal for her was out full force throughout her 41-hour endeavor (41 hours, 45 minutes in the water). She was stung by box jellyfish nine times on Monday night alone, with sharks surrounding her as a team of divers labored for hours in the darkness to discourage them away.

Still, Diana was not discouraged as she was lifted onto her escort boat, and was talking of going back in minutes later. We can’t stay out here, her team told her, it’s too dangerous for you and the crew. This was at 12:55 a.m.; a quarter of an hour later, with lightning, thunder, and roiling winds tossing her tiny escort vessel up and down on the waves like a paper cup, she sat on the back of Quest, a larger escort boat, shaking her head angrily. Fully alert and articulate, she asked, “When can I get back in? I want full transparency that I was out. But I have plenty left in me and I want to go on.” However, the storm went on, too. In a long discussion with her core team, she realized that the obstacles against this swim were too great and agreed at dawn to return to Key West by boat, for the sake of the safety of her team and herself.

Monday, August 20, 2012

The U.S. government broke the law when it paid journalists to try to influence the trial of Cuban agents who were part of the Wasp spy network, defense lawyer Martin Garbus said today during a conference call.
The government spent "massive amounts of energy, money and time" to try to obtain the convictions of members of the Florida-based spy ring, Garbus said. He said:

The government has every right to have a propaganda machine directed overseas. It has no right to take that propaganda machine and turn it on Miami while that trial is going on.

He said the propaganda effort surrounding the paid journalists was unprecedented. He said he hoped the new information would help free Gerardo Hernandez, the convicted spy who led the ring.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Harlistas Lázaro Brotóns and Luis Enrique González in a garage in Cárdenas, east of Havana. González is president of Classic Motorcycles of Cuba, MOCLA by its Spanish initials.

I used to watch "American Chopper" on the Discovery Channel, but lost interest because of all the reality show drama: the Junior vs. Senior feud, Mikey's exploration of the art world.
The Teutuls make some wicked motorcycles - the Black Widow Bike, the Fire Bike, the Statue of Liberty Bike and many others. But their show's hyper-commercialization - the merchandising tie-ins, the bobblehead dolls, the corporate bikes for Intel, Hewlett-Packard and other companies - detracted from the purity of building motorcycles, the oil and grease, the sweat and blood.
With that in mind, it was refreshing to meet some of Cuba's motorcycle aficionados. They are actors in a reality show that doesn't air anywhere, but has more true grit and emotion, courage and sacrifice, than just about anything you see on American TV.

Longtime Harley mechanic Sergio Morales in the living room/workshop of his home in Havana's Luyanó neighborhood.

They go to incredible lengths to keep their vintage motorcycles running. They can't get on the Internet to order spare parts, or ride to the nearest motorcycle dealership. For years, they've been left alone to resolve their problems, whether it's getting new tires, rebuilding a carburetor or fabricating an exhaust pipe.
I was drawn especially to the Harley-Davidson riders who rumble around on battered old Panheads, Flatheads and Knuckleheads that are all more than a half century old. I had ridden my dad's Harley, a black Road King, and loved that motorcycle.

Mike Eaton in Spearfish, S.D., during a trip to attend the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D.

My father, Mike Eaton, taught me to ride motorcycles in the 1970s. He has owned all kinds of bikes over the years and used to race them in Colorado. When I was a teen-ager, he had a 1959 BSA Gold Star, one of the fastest bikes of the 1950s. He sometimes let me ride that bike when I was in high school and it was always a rush.

Adolfo Prieto, president of the Cuba chapter of the Latin American Motorcycle Association, or LAMA.

Flash forward a few decades and I was traveling to Cuba as a journalist. I met the Harley riders - Harlistas as they're called - and wrote a story about them in 1999. That evolved into a friendship with the Harlistas, a few more newspaper and magazine stories, and now a book.
The book is called "Cuban Thunder: Harley-Davidson in Cuba" and it is now available on the iBookstore.

The 181-page interactive book features interviews with more than three dozen Harlistas, along with chapters on Harley-Davidson in pre-revolutionary Cuba, a short video and more than 1,000 photos.
The book is made for iPad. You can download a sample for free or buy it for $5.99. Apple gets 30 percent of each sale; I get the rest. I am donating 20 percent of all the proceeds I receive to Harlistas in Cuba.

Julio Palmero, president of the Habana Harley club in Havana.

The first profile in the book is of Julio Palmero. He not only rides a Harley, he owns a red Continental that he says once belonged to the wife of former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista.
Julio let me ride one of his Harleys along the Malecón in 2010 and it was a thrill.

Julio told me the wet t-shirt contest we saw in Daytona Beach struck him as an authentic American experience

A year later, I invited Julio to the United States and we rode motorcycles together at a rally in Daytona Beach. Among the highlights for Julio: a swap meet where he picked up some spare parts. He said he also liked the wet t-shirt contest we saw because contestants included ordinary people in the audience.

Here's Julio on my Harley-Davidson motorcycle as we return from a rally in Daytona. Notice his backpack stuffed spare parts - the exhaust pipe wouldn't fit inside, so it's bungee'd to the back of the bike.

Among the many other Harlistas I interviewed for the book:

María de los Ángeles Santana, a Cuban singer and actress who rode a Harley

Friday, August 17, 2012

The U.S. government paid off "covert journalists" illegally from 1996 to 2001, then hid its actions for purported reasons of national security to ensure the conviction of former Cuban agent Gerardo Hernández, his lawyer claimed in a sworn statement.
Defense lawyer Martin Garbus said the federal government's "international propaganda machine" violated due process and the integrity of Hernández' trial. He called for an investigation into purported "transgressions" that he believes are reminiscent of CIA abuses of the 1970s.
Garbus, a well-known trial attorney whose clients have included Lenny Bruce, Al Pacino and Nelson Mandela, demanded that the Cuban agent's indictment be thrown out immediately. He wrote:

The Government’s successful secret subversion of the Miami print, radio, and television media to pursue a conviction is nearly incomprehensible. It is unprecedented. There should now be an immediate dismissal of the indictment; otherwise, this case will be permanently memorialized in American legal history as a landmark of ghastly and secretive injustice.